


A Rainy Day

by leslapins



Category: Digimon Universe: Appli Monsters
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 18:30:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10972938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leslapins/pseuds/leslapins
Summary: Before that rainy day, Shinkai Haru believed that he might never meet Katsura Rei again, who disappeared after their final war against Leviathan.





	A Rainy Day

**A Rainy Day**

 

Shinkai Haru believed that he might never meet Katsura Rei again, who disappeared after their final war against Leviathan, in the same way as he showed up in front of them from nowhere.

The gloomy rainy sky reminds him of Katsura Rei. It takes more time and efforts than usual on such a rainy day to travel from the high school to his house. Raindrops dance on his transparent umbrella, the damp asphalt road, the leaves of trees, and the edge of roofs.  
Haru arrives home when the streetlights were all on. Mom has been away for this week, but someone else was here, somewhere around his house, or is still here. Haru notices this before some crimson stains on the stair to the door catches his attention, and he soon figures out these are bloodstains.  
Bloodstains from the wound of a small animal taking a shelter under his roof, perhaps.  
He expects nothing more than a black cat, as the unwashed stains directs him to the backyard, where he found in the dim light, unprepared, the contour of a human figure leaning against the wall, camouflaged by the black parka.  
“Are you okay?”  
Haru asks. But no response. His heartbeat accelerates, as he walks slowly to the person, touches the shoulder, and tells from the temperature felt at his palm that the person is still alive. When he is considering whether to call an ambulance or the police, the hood of the parka slides down, unveiling to him the unusual dark green curly hair, and a face that he didn’t see but kept in memory for years.  
“Rei-kun……?”  
The name has similar syllable as the rhythm of the rain.  
Rei-kun. Rei. Rei. Rei. Rei. Rei.

 

Years have passed as he looks back, Shinkai Haru still thinks that if his encounter with Gatchmon is destiny, then his connection to Katsura Rei is, probably, never definable as such a celebrated thing, for both of them. The destiny that brings them together eventually told him, in the most plain and sheer language, that reality is always much paler than the story, and that there is always something you can never achieve no matter how hard you have tried and endeavored, and some efforts are deemed to be in vain.  
Justice defeated the evil, as every story goes.  
Nevertheless, Katsura Hajime did not and would never come back.  
Long after that, Shinkai Haru has been absorbed in the regret and powerlessness that he could do nothing for Rei. He managed to protect his friend and his ordinary daily life; he might have also save the world, but he could do nothing but watch Rei turning around and walking away quietly, returning to his own darkness. This time, without anybody staying by his side.  
He heard about Katsura Rei from Gatchmon and other appmons occasionally. Rei was witnessed sometimes in the deep web, exploring and handling some nearly impermissible sources, working as a hacker on the most perilous tasks for some specific clients. Rei lives in a different world from his. They are from two different worlds, despite the fact that they have been fighting together, for a short while, shoulder by shoulder. 

 

Haru should have a bunch of questions when he reunites with Rei at this unexpected occasion. Yet when he retrieved after blanking out for a while, the first thing came to his head is to keep Rei hidden in his room instead of calling an ambulance or someone else for help. Rei’s back is bleeding badly. Haru doesn’t know how much blood was washed by the rain, and he is well aware the risk of death caused by hemorrhage, but he also knows that what might further imperil Rei is to expose his trace, his current location and situation. He remembers so clearly the way of life of a hacker that Hackmon told about him.  
Fortunately, no one is at home and he doesn’t have to explain about the situation to anybody. When he tries to carry Rei on his back, Haru is surprised, achingly, at how light the weight on his back is. Rei never eats properly, as he always did. The body temperature far lower than he expected due to hemorrhage and hypothermia makes Haru shivering, but the faint palpation of his heart delivered to his spine saved him from endless fear and desperation.  
Haru calmed himself down, carrying the unexpected visitor on his back, passes through the garden and the front door, directly make their way to his bedroom. He tucks up the unconscious visitor in his bed, before looking for the first-aid case and towels, and doesn’t forget to locked the front door and his bedroom door. He takes off Rei’s rain-and-blood dampened clothing, cleans and examines the wound carefully. There is a gunshot wound at his lower left shoulder. The only good thing is that the insidious bullet is buffered by something before penetrating his skin and making way into his body at its full speed, god bless him, and the bullet is shallow enough in the wound for the untrained high school student can take it out. Haru just obtained his first aid experience at a class, but his first practice now is successful, as accurate and efficient as a professional. And at the moment he finished with the last step of binding up, he suddenly loses his balance and sits on the floor, with his gaze still leveling at Rei’s sleeping face.  
Now he finally has the chance to look at Rei carefully. How long haven’t them met? More than four years. Four years are neither long nor short. He didn’t change that much, so as Rei. Haru tries to sketch every detail of the boy with his eyesight. His hair is a bit shorter than it used to be. He has got a sharper feature, with fresh maturity and masculinity, which didn’t reduce his delicacy, imbedded in the sober eyes and brows, the small but prominent nose, the slender lips. This is the boy emerging and fading in his dream, his memory.  
Haru lounges on the floor and pushes his cheek against the mattress, in a position that he could stare at Rei. Questions suppressed in his mind are now floating up and hovering in his head, until he slowly falling asleep.  
Rei-kun, it has been four years, how are you?  
Rei-kun, what happened to you?  
Rei-kun, against whom and what have you been fighting?  
Rei-kun, why are you here?  
Goodnight, Rei-kun.

 

Katsura Rei wakes up. At the moment when he opens his eyes, he thought himself to be in the deep sea, in the hell, or in anywhere expect the human world. But in the next minute, he realizes that he is still alive, as Shinkai Haru is sleeping beside him, with his head on the edge of the bed.  
He is in Shinkai Haru’s bedroom. He has occupied his bed for hours. Although he doesn’t know why exactly he is here, frankly, this fact magically grants him some relief. Out of the window, the rain stops, leaving the city in absolute silence of the midnight.  
All he could recall, upon recovering from the ache at the injured back and the weak faintness in his head, is that he escaped from the deep web to reality, finding himself at a random district, where he finally managed to get rid of the insidious hunting dogs, at the cost of the bleeding wound in his back. And at the last few minutes when he remained conscious, Rei was guided by a mysterious coincidence, if not destiny as it might be called, wandered to a house where he has never visited but felt incredibly familiar.  
This is basically why Rei is here. The boy sleeping peacefully by his side picked him up, let him in, cleaned and bound up his injured back, tucked him up in his own bed, granted him the a few hours of good rest that he hasn’t had for years. Shinkai Haru is in his high school uniform, though he looks small and unfit in the uniform. As a high school student, he no longer wears the childish goggles. Is his fringe longer than it used to be? Perhaps. It shades his eyelids. Without noticing what he was about to do, his fingers nearly touch Haru’s hair, and suddenly held back by the little move of the sleeping creature. Haru gets himself comfy, continued with his carefree sweet dream.  
For a transient moment, Rei smiles, kind of cloyingly. But the next second he knows that he should leave the house and its owner as soon as possible for the sake of its tranquility.  
Rei finds his washed and dried clothes at the chair. He sneaks off to the doorway, hands on the door handle, considering for the last time whether he should leave quietly without saying goodbye, as he always did. He doesn’t mind acting in a way showing his lack of social courtesy; it is just that a word of farewell factually makes farewell more difficult. Besides that, he knows, Shinkai Haru is awake, standing quietly behind him and waiting.  
“Thanks. I will keep it in mind.” He utters softly to the shadow casted on the door.  
And he is waiting for one last question or request from the boy, to whom he gave his life, and who protected him without any hesitation.  
“Rei-kun, are you leaving now?”  
He asked in a low and soft voice.  
“Yes.”  
But this is not a good response.  
“If I stayed here any longer, you will get into trouble.”  
“I don’t mind.”  
Shinkai Haru never says things just for being nice. He is nice. But more than that, Rei hears determination and dedication in the simple response, as Haru continues:  
“I feel so blissed when seeing Rei-kun and talking to you again. It feels like a dream.”  
Me too. Therefore, let’s take it as the sweetest dream, one should be distinguished from reality.  
“This is not a party time, as you can tell.” Rei raises his voice a little bit, “And remember, it is never a good idea to take care of a person with obscure and questionable background, obviously involving with something dangerous.”  
“No. It’s not someone with questionable background. You’re Rei-kun, I know you so well...and,” Haru murmured in a lower voice, “I have always been thinking of you.”  
The vague shadow moves slightly. He felt Haru comes closer to him, and then push his forehead against Rei’s back, between his neck and his right shoulder. The warmth flows into his body and connects them together, like a red wire.  
“So, where are you going? Rei-kun. You don’t have to answer.”  
Rei couldn’t say a word. He is caught in an unprecedented wave of vacillation, stirred by the boy’s soft but determined voice. A determination that was affirmed long before this moment.  
“There must be a reason for you coming to me and being here. That means I can do something for you. I want to do something for you.”

 

If this is destiny. No. it doesn’t matter whether it is destiny or karma.  
But ultimately, this is just about a tiny little will.  
This time, I will protect you.  
Even if I have to turn my back to the entire world. 

 

Fin.


End file.
